Old Friends/New Friends

A few months ago a friend came to me and told me he was getting married....TWICE. That's right TWO weddings and they were a week apart! He had met the love of his life (total God thing) while having a brief stopover in Miami where she just happened to be briefly on a business trip. Lina's home was Colombia, South America and Kirk, well, he's a good ole boy from Mississippi. Two different cultures about to merge but to make it happen, it was necessary for two weddings...one in Medellin, Colombia and one here in TN. I was so happy when Kirk said that Lina had seen my photography and they wanted me to shoot their wedding here. I helped Kirk a smidge with some of the wedding planning but didn't have the privilege of meeting Lina until the day before. I knew within 2 min of meeting her that she was just one of those people that everyone adores!!! She is so beautiful and her personality is like diamonds...so sparkling!!! People think I have an accent, well Lina has her own going on and I LOVE IT!!!! I knew I would be so lucky to count her as my new found friend and she is. I have the privilege of going to their new home for lunch showing them all the photos from the day but I put together a little slideshow too... check it out! (Big thanks to Brad
Paisley for the music and ANGELA WARD for GREAT Make-up that day!!)

ADVENTURES IN THE WILD

I had the chance to get away for a couple of days last week and go home to East Tn to visit family. We really crammed in some fun. We started out with an overnight camping trip...4 of us in a 2 man tent...interesting. I had my first go with Wii - Mario Cart.. very fun; and I took Maggie and Sam (my niece and nephew-loves of my life) to a drive through Wildlife Safari...that's right, you heard me....Drive Through. McDonald's does it, Starbucks does it and now... Briarwood Ranch is doing it. We ventured out...me and the two little people in the family mini-van. We were the first to arrive, buy our 4 buckets of food, get instructions, and head out...oh, but not before having a feeding and play time with "Patches" the billy goat and a few others. Maggie was beside herself with excitement; Sam, not so much...in the back and serious concern on his face. I was loaded... TWO cameras and a camcorder ready for action. We were told "Just roll down your windows and the animals will just come right up to your vehicle to eat". I'm thinking..this is going to be SO cool!!! We pull through the gate and Maggie climbs to the front seat with food in hand and then it happened..... we were swarmed. It was like someone had opened Noah's ark and pointed the animals our direction.
Go ahead and picture it... there we were in the mini van literally surrounded by ostrich, deer of all kinds, zebra, lamas, buffalo, even a pot belly pig and they were NOT intimidated by us at all. I finally convinced Maggie to just roll down the window halfway and try feeding them but when the Moose got his whole head in the van and was eating like he hadn't had a meal in a week (throwing food all in the van) she was having no fun. We thought we'd drive on down a little and see if maybe we could find a smaller group to feed. We finally make our way through the masses and go up and over a hill to where we see 4 deer. We sigh with relief and roll down the windows for a few deer to come eat. It's all nice until Maggie yells "Auntie A, they're coming after us!" I look behind us and about 100 ft back comes the whole gang RUNNING at us. Maggie rolls up the windows and we peel out like we're leaving a bank robbery. Maggie's yelling, Sam's in the back crying... not how I saw this adventure going. We finally got out and went for another drive through AFTER the animals had been fed by others and were not so aggressive and we actually enjoyed it. He's a few shots from that day and the whole vacation.
Thanks for stopping by!